Phoenix to Portland: "The Past is Prologue"

Warning: This won’t be short; the war on brevity continues unabated.

I’m sitting at Rain OR Shine (OR = Oregon, get it?) my neighborhood coffee shop drinking a resplendent chai that is, of course, locally sourced and organic. It’s a beautiful, if cool, day and it feels good to finally sit down, ignore the ridiculous amounts of reading I have to do and just write about what I want to write about. 

The two-year journey is over. I’m in Portland. This land has existed almost in mythology for me as I’ve prepared to leave the American Southwest for a state I’ve, incredibly, never been to in a region I hadn’t been to since I was 16 (and didn’t like when I was there). The mythology was informed by everything from pop-culture and friends to weather charts. I have moved a lot in the last decade of my life—Florida to Arizona to Cali to Arizona—and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Doing so has forged a new concept of identity for me. I no longer view myself purely in terms of the individual, which Western culture is wont to do, but in terms of my community and those I surround myself with. Who am I apart from them? Sure, the moral relationship of soul to creator remains one of God and man, but I believe I am because we are. So moving my “self” from Phoenix to another place rends me physically from the other part of me: my family, friends, and the body of Christ as it is localized in central Arizona. So I could not move as if it had no bearing on anyone else. These others are important to me. And yet I knew that the season of dryness was to become a season of rain elsewhere. As Aaron Weiss has taught me, they will flow in one river… So now I have left the land of dryness for the land of rain, leaving behind a community forged in the fire of service, laughter, brokenness, adventure, and struggle. I have physically left Legitistan, my home in downtown Phoenix, for a place I don’t know and do not yet understand. This is a serious breach of Legitistan/Epicstan rules: We aren’t allowed to leave. I’m lucky to be alive :)

And yet my two brothers who have been the world to me for so long took the time to load all my junk—a considerable amount I might add—into a rented Kia Sedona for one last hurrah. Leaving without them, just getting on a plane or something would be criminal. A roadtrip was in order. It would be a journey of hitherto untouched distances and proportions for even a well-travelled and adventurous clan such as Legitistan. So May 8th 2012, after a whirlwind 5 or so days back in Phoenix post-Uganda (all the while recovering from a terrible bacterial infection), Kevin, Brant, and I hit the road. Three best friends embarking on the most time-honored of traditions for American single men: the roadtrip. Not just any roadtrip, either, but what would become 2,200 miles from Phoenix, Arizona, up California and Oregon’s unspeakably beautiful Highway 1 to this mythological place known as “Portland”. Amazingly, everything I wanted to bring managed to fit perfectly into the Sedona—mostly due to the logistical genius of Tobie Milford, one of his many talents. We set off with “Drawing Black Lines” blaring through the speakers and set our first day sights to the glittery ghetto known as Hollywood, California. Having lived in SoCal for a few years, it no longer retains much of a draw past great memories of Julien-K shows at the The Viper Room. Once escaping the vicious claws of I-10 Phoenix traffic I watched my beloved land of growth and pain fade in the rearview mirror.

California beckoned. We raced across the desert with the pleasingly rapid pace of traffic all, as motorcyclists are wont to do, thinking of how we’d individually negotiate the amish roadblocks and large trucks if we were on our sportbikes and not in a reddish minivan, the car of our never-hoped-for futures. Lord have mercy. The music was eclectic and phenomenal and we chased the Western sun to our final destination. After eclipsing Quartzite I saw a sign for a Cinnabon store/stand at the Pilot Truckstop just before the California/Blythe border. I flew the van to the exit and told me excited compatriots, “if I am leaving this state for a long time, what better way to leave than loaded with empty carbs and a smile on my face.” We indulged and our metabolisms thought nothing of it. We got back on the 10 and crossed the Colorado river into the greatest state in the union, the Republic of California. We were headed to Brant’s friend’s house just outside of Hollywood in Studio City. Kenny and Meli are in the film industry and have a nice little apartment near Universal Studios. In a few hours we were there, having crossed the Sonoran desert and the even more imposing Inland Empire of San Bernadino county. We parked our van against an ivy covered wall and headed inside. I was not to stay long, however, for while I was very tired a friend of mine in Phoenix had deemed to give me a final going away present that I was to experience. “When is the next time you’ll be in California?” he had asked. “Tomorrow evening, actually” I had said. “Good! I have a really great girl I want you to meet.” “Sounds good”, I said. So, at about 10 PM in Studio City, I jumped back on the freeway to drive to Pasedena for what would become the best blind date I’ve ever been on. Thankfully I’ve never had a bad blind date in my life, but I always know that the potential exists…. Nevertheless, this particular date was fun and, in retrospect, a heck of a way to start life away from Arizona! I arrived back at Kenny & Meli’s at some ungodly hour knowing that we were to hit the road at sunup. God, I love roadtrips.

And so set the tone for the rest of our journey of friendship and adventure through God’s country, the West Coast of the United States. We drove out of Hollywood on the 101 through the Malibu Hills, down through Ventura and Oxnard and whenever we could be on Highway 1 (ie. when it wasn’t merged with the 101 Freeway) we would take that route even though we knew it would take much more time. It was amazing. We ate at a roadside diner in Oxnard, explored Westmont College in Santa Barbara where Thomas and I used to hang out and continued up the coast stopping in a farming community to get fresh strawberries and honey from a roadside vendor. Both were sublime. Soon we were past San Luis Obispo, with Kevin and I having headaches in tow. The actual coast beckoned and once past Morro Bay we were there, snaking along a precipice that beckoned like a siren with its beauty and terror. If one were to ever jump to their deaths, this is the place to do it. Those 3 seconds before annihilation would be of some of the most epic scenery imaginable. Kevin and Brant filled me in on good music I’d missed while in Africa. Gotye and Fun kept the miles and conversation going. We kept a good pace yet stayed enthralled with all that we were taking in. We swept by gas stations with $6 gallons of petrol and were unable to stop at the land of grandeur known as Big Sur. We were getting hungry and my headache was pressing.  Although we stopped to see the Elephant Seals bark and fornicate, Carmel beckoned. We pulled into Carmel and by memory I guided Kevin and Brant to Clint Eastwood’s restaurant called, “Hog’s Breath”. It’s not the best food, nor that expensive, but the ambiance is quite amazing, especially when Brant was in a wife-beater and my beard was looking particularly unkempt. It’s a quaint town but a little too yuppie for the likes of vagabonds like ourselves (“gypsies like us should be stamped in solidarity!”). Plus Los Gatos, in the Bay area was just a few hundred miles over the horizon. Once we got to the drug-coma land of Santa Cruz we jumped on what might be the coolest freeway in America, Highway 17 into Los Gatos. We raced the Sedona next to riced Del Sols and ubiquitous 5-series. We found Jen Foster’s house as if it were nothing and yet rest after such a journey was not in our fortune for as soon as we got there Jen had us jump in her car and we raced to Villa Montalvo Arboretum County Park to do some hiking through beautiful NorCal mountain forests. Despite my residual weakness and Kevin’s asthma we made it just in time for a beautiful view of the bay and Cali’s hard-to-beat sunset. We saw the Apple building directly north in Cupertino. We then hiked down and wearily sought to find the greatest food on earth: Sushi. In retrospect large amounts of exhaustion and sushi probably don’t mix as I didn’t sleep all that well that night despite my relative inability to keep my eyes open.

Day 3 guaranteed to be perhaps the greatest of them all: San Francisco to Redwood National Forest. We stopped for coffee just north of Santa Cruz and put on mewithoutYou’s new and phenomenal album, “Ten Stories”. We eased through farming communities set against some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. It was beautiful and married with Aaron’s soaring, introspective vocals/lyrics had an ethereal, lofty quality to it. My heart was calm as I set my sights towards Portland and my future. Of course, San Francisco, one of my favorite cities in the U.S., was our next destination and we soon found ourselves in the somehow-misplaced East Coast style city idyllically placed in a bay midway up the California coast. The row houses, BART, and forest parks caught our eye and yet we jetted forward to get to the Golden Gate Bridge, the icon of SF. I’ve been across it a few times but it never gets old although I think Rusty can attest that despite its charms, being in its shadow sleeping on the streets of San Francisco it does nothing to warm you up!

We soon found the exit to leave the 101 freeway and regain our footing on Highway one. But first we made a small pitstop in the Muir Woods, where the southernmost Redwoods live. We decided against entering because we knew that night we’d be in the actual Redwood forest, so we headed back out again. In case you’re wondering which stretch of Highway 1 is most epic, either south of SF or north, I can say without reservation that it is north; in fact the Southern Oregon coast is probably even better than the Northern California stretch. Either way, our coastal journey had truly begun once we snaked up the coast north of San Francisco. I don’t think I can capture the awe-inspiring and incredibly varied scenery we passed. I hope none of you have a myopic view of what California looks like for it is by far the most vastly diverse state in the United States and the northern coast is an amazing mix of quaint rural communities and splendid scenery. We stopped for some fresh seafood and then found ourselves easing into the Redwood forests. In case you’re wondering, this forest is the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen, even better than Sequoia National Park near Yosemite. Every mile was a photographer’s dream and we drove in silence just searching for adjectives that would communicate to the fellow traveler what we subjectively observed. None came. The inevitable question that follows news of a redwood excursion into the redwoods is, “did you drive through a tree?” and the inevitable answer if you know anything about Legitistan is, “heck yes!” A 275-foot beast called Chandelier to be exact. The KIA barely fit, but it fit all the same. We had some folks from Idaho help us with the obligatory photo-op and then we were on our way hoping to find an equally large tree to sleep under that night in the National Park a hundred+ miles to the north. I can tell you that one of my favorite drives I’ve ever been on is the stretch from Garberville to Eureka, California. The sun tried to penetrate the thick canopy of lush conifers and gloriously failed, fragmenting light on our thin strip of asphalt heaven that had us dreaming of warm touring motorcycles and 6-month vacations. After an unfortunate stop at a McDonalds in I-don’t-know-where we finally found a place to sleep under the stars. It was night. We opened up the back of the Sedona and I pulled out my down comforters and our sleeping bags and put ‘em straight on the ground. I slept like a baby in the cool Pacific air next to a lush pasture that would in time fill with the Elk that inhabit the dense forest.

We loaded up that Day 4 morning and headed south to hike through the Redwood Forest. Which we did, but the subsequent, umm, “navigational error” cost us some 100 miles of epic journey and massive headache. I am glad we got to experience the Hoopa Native Reservation and Eureka… again, but we were definitely a little behind once we finally made it past where we’d begun and headed past Paul and his, ummm, massive Blue Ox to Crescent City—where we had, I might add, wonderful deep-fried fish ‘n chips of the Salmon variety. The forest had been amazing, but Oregon beckoned. State 41 (I have nine more to go!) was a short jaunt away and we found Brookings, Oregon—the first town we came to—pleasantly warm with what the locals called the “Chetco Effect”, that is warm air from inland Oregon runs down the Chetco river and warms the small fishing town. We went on. The Oregon Coast was better than we could have imagined. It was about a beautiful day as can be imagined and the whole coast of Oregon continued to enthrall us mile by mile. The coast became brutally cold to this Arizona resident but soon we had to turn inland to head to Portland (up Highway 18 if you’re tracking this by map) where it turned considerably warmer. The anticipation in my heart and head was building. The land of myth and beards was approaching. We entered the city from the south and suddenly my new home was there before us in all its beauty—It was love at first sight. The buildings tucked against the coniferous forests and small hills; the river lined by cool buildings and fashionable bars; the OHSU tram running from the river’s shore to the mountain. It was amazing and yet we headed up I-84 to make it to my new home in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood of Portland. We were hungry, however, and stopped at a fun Irish pub on 60th Ave for a quick beer and bite. It was a fitting place to enter into the Portland culture and already the quirky tattooed girls and flannel-wearing bearded men came into view. “I’m going to love this place”, I told myself.

And it’s true. I do love this place. For soon we were home and sleeping on Kelsey’s floor. Kelsey is a friend I know from my time spent in Malawi. She was a fellow intern and we’ve been friends ever since. She and her brother have a small home in Mt. Tabor and now that’s where I live too. Kevin, Brant, and I got the best introduction to Portland that we could: We went to Voodoo donuts (I had the maple bacon donut of course), Stumptown Coffee, and Multnomah Falls. We rode both the MAX lightrail and Portland Streetcar. We even saw Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Hood as we drove around. The weather has been perfect too! It has just begun….

My first day here I got up before everyone else and went to the top of Mt. Tabor and just saw amidst the towering trees and beautiful views and I prayed thanking God for the beautiful weather and for the strength to make it this far. Shackles that had been on my heart for years seemed to just melt away. Place matters and yet we can’t run from our problems, still I knew it was time for me to be here. I didn’t know then and I don’t know now what the future holds. I haven’t even been here a week, but I’m excited for the future here and am confident that this is where I am to be.

There is more, about Portland, Lewis & Clark College, everything—but it is forthcoming….